PERFINNED COMMERCIALLY OVERPRINTED STAMPS

Maurice Harp

Over the last few issues of the Bulletin much has been written on
official overprinted stamps with perfins. All of these have turned out
to be forgeries made of the overprints using previously perfinned
stamps. However there are instances of commercially overprinted
stamps with perfins. Little has been written on these, probably
because they are relatively scarce. Many of the perfins that turn up
are parts of larger carpet dies such as “PAID WITH THANKS” struck
over the receipt stamp and these I have not included in the listings
below.

However some of the overprinted stamps have been found
with perfin dies used for normal postage stamps. In 1986 (Bulletin
223) Arthur Smith recorded two such items:

Stamp

Overprint

Perfin

KGVI 2d

“Received for General Electric Co Ltd”

GE/C

QEII 2d Wilding

“Corporation of Sheffield”

CS

Unfortunately the exact perfin dies were not recorded. Both items
were as would be expected fiscally used. In 1990 Tony Llewellyn-
Edwards wrote an article for the British Commercial Overprint Study
Circle and there he also recorded and illustrated the Corporation of
Sheffield item listed by Arthur Smith.

Michael Behm recorded two more commercial overprints with perfins
in the COSGB Bulletin of July 2005 and these are illustrated below. The first is a Stockport Corporation overprint with a CB/S
perfin (County Borough of Stockport). He suggests that one
department of the Stockport Corporation perforated its commercial
overprints to prevent them from being used by other departments. The
second is a copy of a 2d King George VI light orange with General
Electric Co Ltd overprint with a GE/C perfin. This may well be the
same stamp as recorded by Arthur Smith.

Lastly our own New Illustrated copy records a further two examples.
The first is perfin H0450.01M HBB/&S which was used by Hy B
Barnett & So, Birmingham Stockbrokers. A copy of a King Edward
VII 1d has been reported with “H.B.B./&/S.” overprint in black. The
second example is S2120.01a SD/&Co on a King George VI 2d Dark
Orange with the overprint “Surridge/Dawson/& Co.Ltd.”

+

So having completed this survey I have come up with just five
examples. It really begs the questions as to how or why they should
ever have come about. You would have expected the mail room,
where perfins were used, to be separate from Accounting, where
commercial overprints would be used. At the moment no copies seem
to have been postally used, although it should be noted that some
commercially overprinted stamps did find there way through the
postal system. So the only conclusion left is that in house perfin
machines were occasionally used as a cancelling device on the
revenue stamp. Much in the same way as a “PAID WITH THANKS”
perforator might have been used.